In an open-case type display tray for displaying cylindrical articles such as cans or bottles, the display tray is restocked with articles from the open front of the display tray because of its structure. Meanwhile, the seller has a demand for reliably selling articles in the lot first restocked (known as FIFO (first in, first out)), i.e., old articles, in consideration of the best-before date (sell-by date) and the impression of consumers. However, in an open-case type display tray, which is restocked with articles from the open front of the display tray, the already-restocked and displayed articles are pushed into the back of the display tray if the display tray is restocked with new articles, so that the earlier articles are restocked, the later they will be sold; a phenomenon known as FILO (first in, last out) occurs. In addition, if FILO is done in chilled (refrigerated) articles, a problem arises with well-chilled articles that are displayed for a long time sitting at the back of the display tray, whereas not-yet-chilled articles that are not yet chilled because they have just been restocked remain at the front of the display tray. To resolve this kind of problem, each time the display tray is restocked with articles, it is necessary to take time to move the already-restocked articles to the front of the display tray and move new articles into the rear of the display tray, which is an inefficient operation.
Under these circumstances, the applicant of the present invention has invented a display tray for displaying cylindrical articles which are placed at a front-back direction for display. The display tray includes a pair of laterally-arranged parallel storage chambers. The pair of storage chambers have article mount surfaces for supporting bottom surfaces of the cylindrical articles, and straight guiding surfaces for shiftably guiding each of the cylindrical articles in the front-back direction. The front and rear ends of the pair of storage chambers are communicatively connected to each other via a communication portion of the display tray to allow the cylindrical articles to move from one to the other of the pair of storage chambers via the communication portion (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication 2002-142925; herein referred as Patent Document 1).
However, there is still room for improvement in the article display tray disclosed in Patent Document 1 to smooth movements of the cylindrical articles in the communication portion on the rear end side of the article display tray.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an article display tray provided with a movement guide device, and a movement guide device, wherein cylindrical articles can move more smoothly in a communication portion of the article display tray, via which the pair of storage chambers are communicatively connected to each other, and further wherein an increase in size of the article display tray can be avoided.